A wonderfully written and engaging teenage memoir: read all about Jacqueline's problems with her family, her first love, her school life and her friends. Read extracts from her real diaries and the stories she wrote as a teenager; learn all about the music and books she loved, her troubled school life and her parents' difficult relationship. Written in Jacqueline's usual and inimitable style, this will be fascinating reading for her fans, and for...

When Helen Forrester's father went bankrupt in 1930 she and her six siblings were forced into utmost poverty and slum surroundings in Depression-ridden Liverpool. The running of the household and the care of the younger children all fell on 12-year-old Helen. With very little food or help from her parents, Helen led a life of unrelenting drudgery and hardship. Writing about her experiences later in life, Helen Forrester shed light on an almost forgotten...

This sequel to 'Twopence to Cross the Mersey' continues the story of Helen Forrester's childhood in Liverpool during the Depression, and charts her struggle to earn her own living after years of looking after her brothers and sisters.

Claire Tomalin paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius.

Helen Forrester continues the moving story of her early poverty-stricken life with an account of the war years in blitz-torn Liverpool, and the happiness which she so nearly captured but which was to elude her twice.

Josephine Cox returns to the land of her birth, the environment which provides so many settings for her novels, and in the company of her fictional characters rediscovers the influences which define her as a writer and which so enthrall her readers.

McLaren offers a strikingly inventive and unusual portrait of the most successful English writer for children until J.K. Rowling, Enid Blyton, who entertained milions worldwide with her many adventure stories and mysteries but was herself an adventure and a mystery.

Meg Hutchinson grew up as Margaret Rose Astbury in Wednesbury during the first half of the 20th century. She describes not only the constant struggle to make ends meet but also the laughter and love she enjoyed with her five sisters and parents who were too soft-hearted to punish any of their daughters.

Lucasta Miller explores Charlotte Bronte's first attempts to mould her own and her sisters' public image through to their many reincarnations at the hands of their biographers. The book reveals how hard it is to write an accurate biography.

Moving from New Zealand to London to Scotland, from the UK to points east and west, this is a memoir by Fay Weldon. It tells of love, sex, babies, blokes, poverty, work and politics.